Benjamin Netanyahu,
the Israeli prime minister, condemned a speech by US secretary of
state John Kerry, saying it paid lip service to the ‘campaign of
terrorism that has been waged by the Palestinians’. Netanyahu spoke
at a news conference in Jerusalem on Wednesday after Kerry rejected
criticism that the recent US vote in the United Nations Security
Council abandons Israel, as some Israeli leaders have charged
Prime minister of
Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, says he told US secretary of state John
Kerry that ‘friends don’t take friends to the security council’.
Speaking at his weekly cabinet meeting on Sunday, he states that the
UN security council is not the place to resolve issues and goes on to
say that he is looking forward to working with the new Trump
administration when it takes office in January
Kerry
defends US decision not to veto UN resolution against Israeli
settlements
US
secretary of state pushes two-state solution and criticises Netanyahu
in toughest remarks on Israel by a US official in years
Sabrina Siddiqui in
Washington and Peter Beaumont
Wednesday 28
December 2016 18.53 GMT
The US secretary of
state, John Kerry, has offered a blistering defence of the US
decision to allow a UN resolution condemning Israeli settlements,
saying if Washington had vetoed it, Israel would have been given a
licence for “unfettered settlement construction” and the end of
the peace process.
Framing a two-state
solution as “the only way to achieve a just and lasting peace
between Israelis and Palestinians”, Kerry took aim at the Israeli
prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, for building a coalition that was
“the most rightwing in Israeli history, with an agenda driven by
the most extreme elements”.
Kerry’s speech was
the latest chapter in a high-octane diplomatic drama marked by a war
of words between the Obama administration and Israel, since the vote
on Friday that called Israeli settlements in the West Bank and east
Jerusalem a “flagrant violation” of international law.
The speech was
immediately condemned by Netanyahu, who described it as “skewed”
and “obsessively” focused on the settlement issue.
The exchange between
Kerry and Netanyahu marked a new low in the relationship between
Israel’s government and the Obama administration.
The US abstention in
Friday’s security council resolution drew unprecedented Israeli
fury directed at its closest ally – and other friendly countries
that voted for the resolution – and accusations of betrayal and
underhand dealings.
However, describing
the decision, Kerry said: “If we had vetoed this resolution ... the
United States would have been giving license to further, unfettered
settlement construction that we fundamentally oppose.
“It is not this
resolution that is isolating Israel. It is the permanent policy of
[Israeli] settlement construction that risks making peace
impossible.”
The US secretary of
state’s speech came as Donald Trump vowed once again to reverse US
policy, which he has described as hostile to Israel, as soon as he
takes office on 20 January.
This resulted in one
of the most passionate speeches delivered by Kerry during his time as
America’s leading diplomat.
Pushing back at
Israel’s fury over the US abstention , Kerry pointedly questioned
Netanyahu’s commitment to Palestinian statehood , asking whether
Israelis believed their interests were best served by the recent
attacks on the Obama administration by Israeli leaders.
Kerry also offered a
bleak vision of the risk of the collapse of the Oslo peace process
and the two-state solution, describing the alternative one-state
solution in the darkest terms.
“Today, there are
a similar number of Jews and Palestinians living between the Jordan
river and the Mediterranean Sea,” Kerry told his audience of
diplomats in Washington, out lining the demographic reality on the
ground that would colour the future of a unitary state.
“[Israelis and
Palestinians] have a choice. They can choose to live together in one
state, or they can separate into two states.
“Despite our best
efforts over the years, the two-state solution is now in serious
jeopardy … We cannot, in good conscience, do nothing, and say
nothing, when we see the hope of peace slipping away.
“If the choice is
one state, Israel can either be Jewish or democratic, it cannot be
both, and it won’t ever really be at peace. ”
Kerry also took the
opportunity to forcefully deny Israeli accusations that the Obama
administration had been behind the drafting of the resolution amid
Israeli accusations that the US colluded with the Palestinians .
The US, insisted
Kerry, “did not draft or originate” the UN resolution, adding : “
Nor did we put it forward [in the UN].”
“The United States
did in fact vote in accordance with our values, just as previous
administrations have done,” Kerry said during the speech at the US
State Department. “The vote in the United Nations was about
preserving the two-state solution. That’s what we were standing up
for.”
Kerry outlined a
series of principles he said should form the basis of a future peace
accord between Israel and the Palestinians, with the likely
participation of the U S, including a “secure and recognised
border” between Israel and the new nation of Palestine.
He also said an
agreement must help Palestinian refugees, designate Jerusalem as a
capital for both states and satisfy Israel’s security needs.
Kerry insisted that
far from abandoning Israel, the Obama administration had been one of
its strongest defenders, not least in the signing of a $38bn (£31bn)
defence assistance deal.
Responding to the
speech, Netanyahu said in a statement: “Like the security council
resolution that Secretary Kerry advanced in the UN, his speech
tonight was skewed against Israel .
Netanyahu says
Kerry comments ‘skewed’ against Israel – video
“For over an hour,
Kerry obsessively dealt with settlements and barely touched upon the
root of the conflict – Palestinian opposition to a Jewish state in
any boundaries.”
White
House races to save Middle East peace process before Trump takes
office
John
Kerry to underline outgoing president’s support of two-state
solution with speech setting out US vision of Israel-Palestine
agreement
Julian Borger World
affairs editor
Wednesday 28
December 2016 09.05 GMT
John Kerry is due to
lay out a US framework for a Palestinian-Israeli agreement as the
Obama administration and its international allies scramble to protect
what is left of the peace process before Donald Trump takes office.
The US secretary of
state will outline the proposals on Wednesday, at a time when
US-Israeli relations have reached their lowest point in decades. The
government of the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has
accused Washington of conspiring against it when a UN security
council vote on Friday demanded an end to settlement building in the
West Bank.
The Kerry speech at
the State Department at 11am (4pm GMT) is expected to restate the
Obama administration’s continued faith in a two-state solution to
the chronic impasse. It is a parting shot after eight years in
office, during which there has been a dearth of diplomatic progress.
It is not expected to lead to any new initiative but rather lay down
a marker on a longstanding US and international approach to the
region before the US president-elect, whose commitment to such a
solution is in doubt, assumes office.
“What secretary
Kerry will be doing is he will give a speech in which he lays out a
comprehensive vision for how we see the conflict being resolved –
where we see things in 2016 as we unfortunately conclude our term in
office without there being significant progress toward peace,” the
deputy national security adviser, Ben Rhodes, told Israel’s Channel
2 television.
The parameters
outlined by Kerry are expected to draw international endorsement at a
meeting of foreign ministers on 15 January, just five days before
Trump moves into the White House. The meeting is supposed to
reinforce a strategy of isolating Netanyahu in the hope it will push
him towards reviving stalled negotiations with the Palestinians.
Netanyahu has said his government will not attend.
In expectation of a
more supportive administration in Washington next month, Netanyahu
has reacted to the diplomatic manoeuvring in the last week’s of
Obama’s term with defiance.
Israel responded
furiously to the UN security council resolution passed on Friday that
demanded an end to settlement building, threatening diplomatic
reprisals against the countries that voted in favour.
Jerusalem
authorities had been expected to discuss the issue of more than 600
building permits for settlements in historically Palestinian east
Jerusalem on Wednesday, but the planned vote was cancelled. Hanan
Rubin, a member of Jerusalem’s Planning and Housing Committee, told
Reuters the request to put off the vote came from Netanyahu.
Netanyahu has vowed
to resist a peace framework imposed on his government, and observers
warn that a threatened Israeli backlash in the form of thousands of
new settler homes in east Jerusalem, combined with Trump’s plan to
move the US embassy to the disputed city, could trigger a fresh wave
of violence.
The Israeli
government is reportedly fearful that any guidelines agreed in Paris
would be turned into another UN resolution before Trump’s
inauguration, and it has ratcheted up its rhetoric, presenting itself
as the victim of an international conspiracy.
A spokesman for
Netanyahu claimed to have “ironclad evidence” that the Obama
administration had plotted behind the scenes to promote the UN
resolution. Israel has said it will present evidence against the
Obama administration to the incoming Trump team.
On Tuesday, Egyptian
media published a document purporting to be a transcript of a meeting
in which Kerry and the US national security adviser, Susan Rice,
discussed the UN resolution and US proposals with Palestinian
officials, who agreed to give the Kerry framework immediate support.
The State Department spokesman, John Kirby, said no such meeting took
place.
Meanwhile, Israel’s
defence minister, Avigdor Lieberman, portrayed the Paris conference
as a new “Dreyfus trial”, referring to an outburst of French
antisemitism more than a century ago, and urged French Jews to move
to Israel.
On Tuesday a French
official denied there was any intention to pass a new security
council resolution on the basis of the Paris conference. A foreign
ministry spokesperson said the meeting would “give the participants
an opportunity to present a comprehensive incentive package to
encourage the resumption of negotiations between the Israelis and
Palestinians. Only they will be able to conclude a peace deal
directly.”
Palestinian leaders
hope the UN resolution and the Paris conference will offer some
degree of international protection against the encroachment of
settlements in the Trump era.
The Palestinian
president, Mahmoud Abbas, said he hoped the Paris meeting would
establish an international mechanism to end Israeli settlement
building.
Trump criticised
Friday’s UN resolution, saying it would make it harder to negotiate
a peace agreement. In a tweet on Monday, he described the UN as “just
a club for people to get together, talk and have a good time”.
Trump’s designated ambassador to Israel, his own bankruptcy lawyer
David Friedman, has actively supported settlement building.
Aaron David Miller,
a former US negotiator on the Middle East and now a scholar at the
Wilson Centre thinktank, said Obama’s 11th-hour attempt at legacy
building on the Israeli-Palestinian issue could trigger a backlash.
“It risks the incoming administration walking away from whatever
has transpired in December and early January, and not just walking
away from [but] sending unmistakable signals to the Israelis that it
would support and favour acts on the ground that go beyond what we’ve
seen,” Miller said.
“The odds that
Netanyahu will now press and Trump will respond positively to a move
to push the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, I think have gone
up.”
He said that if the
highly emotive issue of Jerusalem’s status became the focal point
of Israeli-Palestinian friction once more, “then I think the
prospects for a serious, significant confrontation are high”.
Amir Oren, a liberal
Israeli commentator, argued that the UN resolution could save the
government from itself by bringing closer an end to settlement
construction.
“Santa Obama
delivered a wonderful Christmas present to Israel when the United
States opted not to veto Friday’s United Nations security council
vote condemning settlement policy,” he wrote in Haaretz. “The
passage of the resolution won’t result in the immediate dismantling
of any West Bank settlements, but the world is beginning to come to
the rescue and try to save Israel from itself.”
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